5 things to know about the protests challenging Bolivia's new president

LA PAZ, Bolivia -- Less than six months ago, the inauguration of centrist President Rodrigo Paz seemed to usher in a new reality for Bolivians reeling from the worst economic crisis in a generation and fed up with two decades of almost uninterrupted socialist leadership.

Long lines at gas stations vanished as pro-business Paz secured fuel imports. Bolivia's chronically depreciating currency surged on the black market as stock markets swooned over his plan to shrink the budget deficit. After years of diplomatic isolation, Bolivians took pride in the dozens of international delegations that celebrated Paz's swearing-in as he repaired strained relations with the United States and regional powers.

Now, that optimism has been replaced by dread as violent protests shake the government of the Trump administration ally. Demonstrators wielding dynamite have blockaded major cities, leading to shortages of food, fuel and medical supplies. Indigenous and rural Bolivians who backed Paz's campaign promises to upend the status quo while protecting social welfare have called on him to step down.

Here are five things to know about the protests roiling Bolivia, as Paz approves a law that could pave a way for him to declare a state of emergency.

Former supporters of Bolivia's long-dominant Movement Toward Socialism party, known by its Spanish acronym MAS, who helped vault Paz to power over more conservative rivals, have increasingly voiced concern that his government doesn't represent them.

Shortly after entering office, Paz struck deals with more conservative parties in Congress. He shut out the populist vice president widely seen as responsible for his electoral success.

He named no members of Bolivia’s Indigenous majority to high-level posts. He supported a land reform bill to boost agribusiness that Indigenous farmers said put them at risk of eviction. He scrapped fuel subsidies, sending prices surging by nearly 90%. Motorists complained the gasoline was contaminated and ruined their cars.

To blunt the blow as the Iran war further exacerbated price pressures, Paz offered cash transfers to vulnerable families. He hiked the minimum wage 20%. He repealed the controversial land law. But he rebuffed demands for further salary increases, infuriating the national labor union.

By a quirk of geography, barriers thrown up along the slopes leading down to Bolivia's seat of government, La Paz, can completely isolate more than 1.6 million residents of the city and its surroundings, or over 13% of the country's population.

Indigenous movements have long deployed the siege strategy, first popularized during a late-18th-century rebellion against Spanish colonialists.

In 2003 and 2005, demonstrators blockading La Paz in protest over foreign designs on their country's natural gas reserves toppled two pro-Western governments, paving the way for the rise of former President Evo Morales, the founder of MAS.

Now the road blocks strangling La Paz have entered their fourth week. Thousands of trucks loaded with food and other essentials, like oxygen supplies for hospitals, remain stranded on highways. Beef, eggs and fruit have largely disappeared from supermarket shelves. Subsidized chicken is being flown into La Paz via military aircraft. The government says at least four people have died for lack of medical care; hospitals are continuing to operate, but supplies are going to critical cases.

Shop owners and transport workers opposed to the protests are ramping up pressure on Paz to reopen the roads at any cost. Banging pots and pans and waving white flags as they marched downtown on Tuesday, they chanted, "We want solutions! We can't take it anymore!”

Although security forces have used tear gas to disperse demonstrators and arrested over 120 people, Paz has so far resisted calls to deploy greater force to break the blockades. Believing that the deaths of protesters at the hands of police would only inflame tensions, Paz has insisted on dialogue as the best way out of the crisis.

“There shouldn’t be any deaths in Bolivia,” he said on Wednesday as he convened a council to include underrepresented social sectors in economic decision-making. “What we need is dialogue. For the love of our country, let’s talk.”

Paz has offered bonuses to teachers and reached agreements with some protesting miners. He slashed his own salary in half, fired his unpopular labor minister and appointed a lawyer from the country's Indigenous majority to the post.

Calls are growing for Paz to impose a state of emergency, which would put the military in charge of restoring public order for 60 days. After Congress passed a law lifting restrictions on the army’s role in quelling civil unrest late Tuesday, Paz now has the constitutional authority to invoke this power. He has described it as an option of last resort.

Morales, the former union leader who became Bolivia’s first Indigenous president in 2006 and ruled for an unprecedented 14 years, is calling for early elections.

“Paz only has two paths left: a suicidal decision like militarization or ... an election in the next 90 days," he wrote on X.

For almost two years now, Morales has been hiding out in Bolivia's central coca-growing Chapare region, evading an arrest warrant on human trafficking charges relating to having sex with a 15-year-old girl. He rejects the allegations as politically motivated.

Some of the unions and Indigenous groups rallying against Paz are allied with Morales, whose attempts to hold onto power longer than the constitution allowed alienated much of his once-vast base and led to his fraught 2019 ouster.

His loyalists — hardened protesters from the coca-growing unions — formally joined the protest movement last week, marching through the Andes to the capital to demand Paz step down. Paz's government has accused Morales of funding the demonstrations, which he denies.

Trump-allied governments that recently swept to power across Latin America — from Argentina and Chile to Honduras and Costa Rica — have pledged their support for Paz and denounced the protests as destabilizing.

President Gustavo Petro of Colombia — among the few leftist leaders still in power in the region — fired back in defense of the protests, which he called a “struggle for Latin American dignity" and “response to geopolitical arrogance." Bolivia expelled the Colombian ambassador.

The United States has struck a hard line, characterizing the unrest as a coup attempt.

“We will not allow criminals and drug traffickers to overthrow democratically elected leaders in our hemisphere,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week. The U.S. Embassy in La Paz said it was closing Wednesday and Thursday due to the unrest.

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DeBre reported from Buenos Aires, Argentina.